


I'm not afraid, I have you.

by Macaron



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Dreams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Magical Realism, Mutual Pining, Sort of with magical realism the emphasys on sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 03:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14803574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macaron/pseuds/Macaron
Summary: “You know, they said that when you can't sleep, it means that you're awake in someone else's dream.” Ashton says out of nowhere.“Bullshits!”“Yeah.”Armie can't sleep, Timmy can't stop dreaming and nobody can move on.





	I'm not afraid, I have you.

“You talked to Luca, right?”

“Mh. Mh.” Armie nods but Timmy can't see him. They aren't facetiming this time. They don't facetime aymore. They are always too busy, with too many people around. They are always in the wrong place at the wrong time (but this is the all they always were).

“No Call me by your name part two, then.”

"Mh. Mh."

It's like talking to a wall. It's not like it was before, when they can't stop to talking, when he had to raise his hand to shut him up, laughing.

He can’t remember the last time they laughed together. It seems like a lifetime ago.

"What do you think? It sucks, right?" He almost adds it to suggest an answer. Please tell me it's sucks for you too, Armie.

“Yeah- I don’t know, man. Luca said that the companies weren’t interested in the project as he wanted to do, that no one wanted to invest in a movie that would be released at least after three years. This is just a small indie movie you know, it's not the new Star Wars that people would wait forever. The right time to get the sequel out was now but Luca wasn’t of the same idea and they didn’t come up with any solution. He's right, it's his film, Tim. The first film worked so well because he shot it on his terms. "

“Is it, really?”

“What?”

“Just a small indie movie.”

Armie smiles and this time Timmy can almost see his smile . “You know that isn’t just that, for me.”

“It sucks.”

“It sucks indeed.”

Please do not hang up, Timothée thinks. Because I have the sensation that this will be the last time we'll talk to each other.

Please talk to me about anything, but keep talking to me.

"You know maybe it's better this way-"

"How are the children?" He interrupts himself because in the attempt to fill the silence with everything  he hasn’t listened.

They laughs.

"You first."

“I was saying that maybe is better in this way. Of course it sucks, but a sequel is never as good as the first movie, everyone would continue to make comparisons and stuff like that. I don’t know, it was such a unique experience, so perfect that perhaps it’s better that it remains unique and perfect instead of ruining itself. "

A movie with us together, how could it ruin something?

Armie keeps talking "And then you're so busy you could never find the time, we would have kept on postponing it and it would have been one of those movies that you do not even want to promote because it doesn’t help your career."

I’m not like this, you should know I’m not like this. You should know me. You used to know me.  How did we end up like this? And Timothée feels so angry that he wants to hang up  the phone but obviously he doesn’t do it because he is afraid that nobody would call him back. “C’mon man! I will never skip a promo with you!”

“I know! I know! You are not like this!” I’m not like this. Timmy says in his head. “You are the purest soul in the world but let's try to be serious.  In a couple of months you'll win your first Oscar as  supporting actor, what could this movie give you? It would be a step backwards for your career and I know you would do it for me but I don’t want you, you deserve better.”

"You're not talking about my career anymore, are you?"

"And it's better for us, too." Bam.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Now Timmy is really angry and he isn’t scared anymore.  What do they have to lose that they have not already lost?

Armie exhales deeply. "I'm saying maybe  we need some time apart."

He laughs. "Still further? Fuck I'm in New York and you're in LA, we haven’t seen each other for months, we talk less and less."

"But you're still here, anyway." And Armie's voice cracks.

And Timmy is no longer angry, he's just sad. He remains silent and waits.

"When I grill the meat and I remember you like it well cooked even if you're French and you should know that the filet sucks well cooked . When I find one of the usb pens  with your music in the car. When someone comments my stupid insta talking about you. I need to close the circle, I can’t keep waiting for the sequel. "

You are the one who is married. I'm the one who is waiting. I'm the one who should want to move on. Everything is upside down in this situation.

"Yeah you are right, it's better in this way." Everything is wrong. So maybe they are wrong. "We should put some distance."

"Yeah right."

"Move on." Timmy adds.

"And anyway what kind of fruit could I have fucked  in the sequel? A cherry?"

"Hey man I saw you naked and I would say at least one apricot!" For the first time Armie's voice sounds familiar, sound like how should be. Happy, relaxed. Safe?

"Fuck you!"

"You wish!"

They are so right and it's all so wrong.

"Maybe I'll  text you sometime.” Timothée tries to add one of those phrases of courtesy to which no one really believes.

"Sure sure, when you're not too busy to polish your Oscar!"

And  this really looks like a goodbye.

"Armie?"

"Yeah?"

"It was never just a small indie movie for me either."

And maybe this is a goodbye.

 

 

 

“What’s the problem, man?” asks Ashton.

“Problem?”

They are in the gym to train and usually on those occasions Ashton remains lying on the bench regretting not being in his studio to paint while Armie tries to break some new ligament boxing but today Armie seems lost in his world.

“C’mon usually after ten minutes on the gym your shirt would be already soaked. Trouble in paradise? The job? Aren't you feeling well?”

“Hops should start a new dance class next monday and Elizabeth is thinking of opening a new bakery in Nola because we loved the city, we are busy but everything is fine.  Everything is fine.” Nothing seems so fine.

“Friends?” Ashton asks again.

“You are here and we aren’t having any problem. And Nick is Italy enjoying his family.”

Ashton sighs and starts to regret  not being in his studio painting. “Other friends?”

He doesn’t say Timmy and Armie is grateful for that. Choose a few friends but choose them carefully.

 “I think I'm just a little tired.  I’m not sleeping very well lately.”

"You never sleep well."

Armie laughs. "No no I know that I never really sleep well but usually is for a reason, you know a night shot, Hops with fever, a promo for something. This time I simply don't sleep. I go to sleep, I do not fall asleep and the day comes.  It’s fucking exhausting.”

"Have you tried with a chamomile?"

Armie snorts.

"Have you tried with a booze?"

"Now you are talking!”

They start doing gymsagain.

“You know, they said that when you can't sleep, it means that you're awake in someone else's dream.” Ashton says out of nowhere.

“What a bullshit!”

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

 

Armie can’t understand how he woke up in this place.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep and actually not even woke up, he just found himself in this place he can ‘t recognize.

He can smell sea and hot bread and the sun is warm on his skin. It’s a place that doesn’t recognize but at the same time feels like its own.

"It's not hot bread, it's focaccia. You want some?"

He might not recognize that place but he would always recognize Timmy's voice.

"Hi" Timothée says chewing a piece of hot bread (no, not hot bread, focaccia) and he feels like home, he feels like he is himself again.

"Where are we?" He doesn’t ask how he understood what he was thinking, Timmy always manages to do it, is one of his many talents that he must have developed at LaGuardia. Acting, piano, reading Armie's mind.

"You really do not recognize this place?"

"Nope, I've never been there."

"Look better, have you never seen it anywhere?"

"Nope."

Armie is going to tell him to fuck off, he's going to tell him to stop talking to him like he's a jedi master and just give him the answer but he feels so happy he doesn’t even care that Timmy treats him like an idiot. Just be there with him. I missed you so much, he thinks. I missed you so much and I will never be able to tell you.

And then he realizes and Timmy smiles widely to him as if he were really proud of him. Nobody has ever smiled like Timmy, no one has ever looked at him like that. Not that he deserves it, of course.

"Hammer museum!"

"This is where Monet came to paint." Timmy nods, still smiling.

"B."

"The real one."

Armie looks around, plunges into the landscape, inhales the salt air and then looks at Timmy who has been sitting sprawling at his feet .. "It's beautiful." and he doesn’t know what he's talking about.

"Why are we here, Tim?" He asks.

"To eat focaccia, you can’t find decent focaccia outside Liguria." Timmy  answers him as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, the only answer.

"Be serious."

"I was lost, I needed you here." And this is probably the only answer to a lot of questions.

"I just needed you."

"You could have had me." Timmy looks at him straight in the eye and Armie is the first to look down.

"Not  in the way I needed you."

"What was?"

"All of you."And Armie doesn’t know what to say anymore.

"Eat some focaccia, Armie."

"I'm trying but you're eating it all! What happened to your image of an ethereal and skinny boy? " He jokes trying to steal a peace of focaccia and  dirtying his hands with oil and salt.

"At least I'm young enough to have a metabolism that still loses weight, old man!"

"Asshole!"

They remain silent eating focaccia, letting their knees touch each other.

"Now I undertand why Luca chose Crema instead of B, this is definitely better than longing and waiting and kissing.Elio wouldn’t  had a  chance if Oliver had seen the focaccia first. "

"And I would have had a chance?"

"Hey don’t give me puppy eyes, you're cute but this shit is totally a different story!"

“I missed you.”

“I miss you, Tim.”

 

 

 

 

“Arms? What are you doing?”

Elizabeth's voice sounds distant, almost muffled.

"Just some workout."

"At four in the morning?" She doesn’t seem angry, just surprised.

"I couldn’t sleep. I've tried to read something but nothing, still awake. Usually physical activity helps you to sleep, so I tried it."

"And is it working?"

  Armie puts the barbell on the floor and snorts. "Not so well."

Elizabeth approaches him and hugs him from behind and it's beautiful, it's something they were no longer used to do, not without children, not without cameras,  not just for themselves. At this precise moment, Armie is absolutely aware that he isn’t happy with his life, perhaps not even  with his marriage but he is happy in that hug and it’s still something. It is what he has chosen, it is what he has left.

“Sorry if I woke you up.” And he is really sorry. Not just for waking her up.

She smiles on his back. "You know I never sleep deeply, and I found myself in front of a beautiful, sweaty man, I can think of worse ways to wake up."

"You know that lifting weights is not the only physical activity you could do to help you sleep, right?"

Armie knows and he kisses her.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Years ago I saw that line about being awake in someone else's dream and it was so cheesy that I wanted to make a fic around it but I had always the wrong fandom with too much angst or the wrong story than these two happened and here we are.  
> The title is a quote from Unastoria my favorite graphic novel by Gipi (not in eng, apparently. What a waste!). The part about focaccia is just me being angry with Luca because I like Crema but I wanted the real B in Liguria with my fucking sea, and focaccia is really better than tortelli cremaschi.  
> Work of fiction, nothing really happened (with magical realism is easier) and nobody ate focaccia.  
> As always I write in english as Oliver speaks in italian, but I haven't the ass of Armie Hammer so it's even worse.


End file.
